By Franklin Alli

Former Managing Director, Liberty Bank, Chief Lawson Omokhodion, has noted that Oil and gas will continue to dominate people’s consciousness for a long time to come.

Omokhodion who was the guest speaker at a conference on Transforming Nigeria by the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mine and Agriculture, (NACCIMA) , held at the Federal Palace Hotel,Lagos,said although Nigeria’s oil reserve will soon dry up, that the nation still has an abundant natural gas deposit to sustain it.

In his presentation ‘Vital Information on the downstream sector,’ he observed that although Nigeria’s oil reserve will dry 37 years from today, yet Nigeria has an abundant natural gas deposit of 184 trillion cubic feet, making it the seventh largest gas reserve in the world.

Those were strong statements; it means that even if oil should dry, the Federal Government will shift dependence to natural gas as the major foreign exchange earner for the country.

Perhaps, it was the awareness of this reality that oil will dry one day that led the National Orientation Agency to come up with “Oil go finish one day” jingle on the air wave. I don’t know if the jingle has been rested or is still being aired.

Also, pressure by private sector bodies on government to reduce our dependence on oil and diversify the economy from oil to non-oil products, may have led to the establishment of agencies like the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, NEPC, Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, NIPC, to drive the process.

The Ministry of Trade and Investment is not left out in this noble quest. Even private sector organisations are not left out. For instance, the annual Enterprise Exhibition, an initiative of Compass Consulting UK Ltd, which is now being propelled by the Bank of Industry, is geared towards promoting non-oil products from Nigeria to 2.5 million Nigerians in the United Kingdom.

These bids are commendable. To some extent, their activities, particularly, NEPC, have made it possible for made in Nigeria products to penetrate foreign markets, especially Europe and the USA.

According to statistics provided by the NEPC, there has been an impressive improvement in the value of non-oil export for the last five years except for 2009 when there was global economic meltdown.

NEPC CEO, David Adulugba, said that US$1.495 billion non-oil products were exported in the half-year of 2011.

“Agricultural products contributed more than 70 percent of the country’s non-oil exports. “Cocoa and cocoa products are the leading export products followed by goat, sheep skins and finished leather. Over 90 different products were exported to 100 countries all over the world,” he said.

In spite of all these efforts, diversifying the economy is still a long way and may not be fully achieved by the year 2020, not even in the next fifty years.